


At First Loss

by VillainsAlwaysWin



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Bartender Mick Rory, F/M, Lisa & Hartley are almost eighteen, M/M, the thing with Cisco could go either way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 12:23:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7361398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VillainsAlwaysWin/pseuds/VillainsAlwaysWin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Neighbors - Killerwave Week 2 Day 6)</p>
<p>Caitlin didn't know who would want to steal her doormat, but as weird as it was, it did score her a hot boyfriend, so she couldn't be too mad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At First Loss

When Caitlin moved in to her new apartment, she expected a couple of friendly neighbors, maybe even a couple that straight-up ignored her. What she didn’t expect was for her stuff to keep disappearing.

It started with the doormat Cisco had bought her as a “five years of awesome friendship” gift. It said “This is not the door you’re looking for” and out of the two doormats she had, it was her favorite, and was the first thing she set out when she unpacked. The doormat was gone within two days of her moving in.

When she set out the other doormat, just a plain tan one that said “Welcome”, it was gone within two _hours._

She asked around the apartment complex about a possible doormat thief – it was mostly empty, being newly built and all, but there were four families living in the building. College student Jessie Wells lived across the hall from Caitlin with her scientist father, and she had been friendly enough but hadn’t heard of anyone else’s doormats possibly being stolen. She had, however, offered to help her unpack as a “welcome to the apartment family” kind of gift.

The next neighbor was her friend Barry’s father, a prison doctor, and the reason she had known of the apartment complex in the first place, and he hadn’t heard anything either, but had promptly moved his own doormat back into his closet.

At the end of the hall was Police Captain David Singh and his boyfriend, respectfully Barry’s boss and a fellow nurse at the hospital Caitlin worked at. They had heard someone walking around late at night, possibly a doormat thief, but most likely just her next-door neighbor Mick Rory. She followed his suggestion and ended up an apartment over from her in front of a split-wood door.

She knocked cautiously on the door, careful not to touch the rough pieces of wood, and waited.

The way Singh had described Mick Rory had her picturing an older man, friendly face like Henry Allen’s, and possibly the smell of alcohol from his job as a bartender at a joint farther into Central. She’d been told he was constantly bringing food over to the neighbors for them to sample as a new recipe for the bar, and had a steady stream of visitors so no one could decide if he was single or not, and the most common visitor was an adorable teenage girl by the name of Lisa.

Nothing prepared her for the actual man when the door came swinging open.

Barry Allen, one of her best friends and track coach at the local college, had nice abs. She might not have had any feelings for him romantically, but she could certainly admire them. His girlfriend Iris had bragged about them enough times, after all. But Barry’s fit runner body had nothing on the man standing in front of her.

No matter where she looked, her eyes were drawn to muscle, and those biceps were to _die for,_ and the black muscle shirt he was wearing wasn’t hurting that image _._ This man would have no problem holding her up, preferably against a wall, or pinned on a bed, and those long fingers were just as attractive as the rest of him. When her eyes finally reached his face, her mind blanked.

He was practically a masterpiece chiseled of marble, and those cheekbones were so sharp they could probably cut diamonds. And those _lips, goodness_ – he looked nothing like sweet Henry Allen. This was a man made for sin. Forget his cooking, she’d rather just taste _him –_ and she really needed to stop that train of thought because the silence was starting to go on too long.

Flustered, she tucked her hair behind an ear, and stuck out her hand. “Hello, I’m Caitlin Snow, your new neighbor!” she exclaimed, her voice thankfully not coming out as squeaky as she had first feared. “I just moved in a few days ago, and I thought I’d, um, stop by and introduce myself.”

Mick stared down at her – and he was so _tall –_ blankly for a minute, and then nodded his head, gesturing towards the open door. “Got company over, but yer welcome t’ come inside,” he said. He didn’t make a move to shake her hand, and she lowered it quickly.

When she walked in, sure enough there was a group on the leather couch inside, and they all stopped arguing to stare at her. She could see the girl David had told her about, dressed in a pretty gold dress in the middle of the sofa next to what looked like her brother in a pale blue dress shirt. Along with the two siblings was another woman, this one probably the same age as Caitlin, and another attractive man dressed in what looked like an acrobat costume than anything else.

Mick cleared his throat behind her and grunted, “Make a seat for the lady.”

Lisa’s brother quickly got off the couch and sat on the coffee table, leaving a spot for her. The acrobat didn’t move, but grinned wildly at her. When she sat down, she scooted a bit away from him. “Who are you?” Lisa demanded.

“Neighbor,” Mick answered for her, and was she ever gonna get used to that voice? “She lives next door.”

Lisa continued to scrutinize her, as well as her brother. She figured they had to be about ten years apart, her brother and Mick, but she was never good at guessing ages. “I hear you’re Lisa,” Caitlin offered after a moment of silence.

Apparently the girl had seen something she liked in Caitlin, because instead of glaring at her more, the teenager beamed. “Yep!” she exclaimed. “Lisa Rory, and this is my brother Lenny, and Shawna and Axel! Hart’s burning food in the kitchen.”

Another voice yelled, presumably from the kitchen on the other side of the small apartment, “It’s not burning, it’s cooking, Lise!”

“Hartley, stop ruining my food,” Mick called back. “It’s a wonder you’re still alive, kid, with the charcoal you call edible. I thought you were a fancy finger food kinda guy.”

“Says the imbecile who likes his hotdogs black!” Hartley said arrogantly. When he popped his head out from the side of a wall, she was surprised to see he, also, was a teenager. And, sure enough, she could smell something burning.

Caitlin laughed and interrupted the conversation. “I actually came over to ask if maybe you knew of someone stealing doormats? Both of mine have gone missing in the last week, and David Singh from the end of the hall told me to ask you.” She replied.

Mick’s face was blank and he turned around to Lenny. “Leonard,” he said with a sigh, “I’m trying to break those bad habits – stop being such a klepto. Where’s the stuff?”

As the other man grumbled and headed off towards Hartley, presumably to get her doormats – and she _knew_ someone had stolen them, Barry really needed to have some faith in her – Mick turned back to her. “Sorry doll,” he said. “He’s adopted. Dad was a bad cop, he got bad habits.”

“It’s okay,” she said quietly, accepting the doormats when Leonard came back with them and a scowl, “I really should be going though. I’ve got my own dinner to make.”

҉

She thought that was the end of the missing items, Leonard being caught as the thief, but it turned out that was the just the beginning. And so went half a year. She would lose things like her favorite shampoo, can opener, doormats (again!), picture frame of when she and Barry did drunk karaoke and Cisco wanted blackmail, her first aid kit, and even her work scrubs. It started the cycle of Len stealing, her confronting him, and getting the stuff back only for him to start up again the next week.

After about a month of not losing anything – and she wouldn’t admit it but it drove her a bit crazy, thinking something would be stolen but _nothing was missing_ and that kid was having way too much fun watching her freak out, she knew it – and suddenly things started appearing in her own apartment. Things that weren’t hers, and she crossed out the idea of gifts early on.

No, the very first thing wasn’t even a thing, it was a person. Axel. She’d learned Axel Walker ran a costume store – hence the weird outfits every time she saw him – and was one of the Rogues that were friends with Mick, a fitting nickname some of the new families that had moved in had deemed them. She’d arrived home late after her shift, exhausted and didn’t even want to bother making dinner, and Axel was asleep on her couch, a fresh salad waiting for her on the kitchen table.

She’d chalked it up to a dream, ate the salad, and crawled into bed. There was no sign of him the next morning.

Then it was homework assignments, definitely not hers, and Lisa knocking on the door at six in the morning to claim them as her own, and _hurry Cait, I have school in an hour, I need those!_ Then Leonard, nickname apparently Len and not Lenny, fixing her security system because he claimed he was the best thief in town and it was so easy to crack, a baby could do it. (It was right before work, so she just let him do it and told him to lock up after he left.)

Cisco and Barry had both dropped by one of those weekends that Shawna was there, peppering her with questions about her job because she was a young med student, and had found it adorable. Caitlin was just convinced it was another way for Len to drive her crazy without being yelled at for stealing things.

Well, they found it adorable up until Hartley and his vocabulary-heavy insults showed up on her front door and proceeded to make fun of Cisco’s shirts – and he was a Star Trek nerd too, she didn’t even know why he bothered pretending otherwise – and Cisco and Hartley struck up a rather bitter rivalry.

(Shawna started placing bets on whether Cisco would make a move on Hartley or Lisa when they turned twenty – Caitlin didn’t even bother betting because it could go either way, but Barry put an unreasonably high amount on Lisa.)

As well as striking up friendships with the ‘Rogues’, she’d struck up a very nice one with Mick. They shared a love of cooking, movies and the Snarts – but the best thing about their friendship wasn’t how well they got along as neighbors.

In her opinion, the best part of their friendship was how when she went down to his bar, she immediately got free drinks, or how she got to taste not only his cooking but his lips too (she just couldn’t pick a favorite, but Hartley’s Crème Brule was a close third). The best part of their relationship was definitely how Cisco had converted one of the closets into a door and they could just go from one apartment to the other without having to step outside, and so it led to many, many sleepovers throughout the month.

She could deal with Len’s klepto tendencies and Lisa’s glitter obsession, and even the rivalry if only for her new neighbor boyfriend – because those muscles? They were definitely strong enough to hold her, and his personality was as great, if not as gruff, as David Singh had said.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I put Underage as a warning because there's foreshadowing to Cisco/Lisa or Hartley, but nothing would happen until they are of age.


End file.
